THE EFFECT OF EXPLICIT MORPHOLOGICAL INSTRUCTION ON LEARNERS’ READING COMPREHENSION PERFORMANCE: WITH PARTICULAR REFERENCE TO GRADE 11TH METEMA YOHANNES SECONDARY SCHOOL

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of explicit morphological awareness instruction on reading comprehension of secondary school students. This research project was mainly quasi-experimental in design. To conduct this study, a total of 82 EFL learners from MetemaYonannes Secondary School were participated. The participants were homogeneous in terms of age (18-22), streams of study, mother tongue, and reading comprehension performance. Grade 11th students were selected as the participants of the study through convenience sampling technique since the researcher was assigned to teach this grade level. From this grade level, two already existing groups (A and B) were selected on the basis of the pretest and were assigned into experimental and control group. Reading comprehension tests and interview were used as a data gathering instrument. The tests’ reliability were measured by Pearson product moment correlation coefficient and were found to be acceptable .725 and .738 for the pretest and posttest respectively. Teaching material which mainly consisted of morphological units and exercises was prepared and used during the experiment. Independent samples t test was used so as to see if any significant difference existed in the reading comprehension performance of the participants in the pre and posttest of experimental and control group. The results of the pretest showed that there was no significance difference in the reading comprehension performance of the students between the control and experimental groups prior to the experiment. The results in the posttest, however, showed that there was a significant difference between the control and experimental groups in reading comprehension performance. In addition, the qualitative data showed that participants had got some improvement from the intervention. On the basis of the findings of the study, it was concluded that morphological awareness in the context of reading could have a great contribution in enhancing students’ reading comprehension performance. Based on this, conclusions and recommendations were made.